I’m pretty sure Paul took pictures of us the other night drinking our own wine but then he didn’t post them. If I can distract him enough today maybe I’ll get him to upload to this posting.
I was goofing off the other day and took a picture of my baking station, since so many people have asked me if I’m using a bread machine. The answer is no, I’m not using a bread machine, I’m using the KitchenAid stand mixer, as seen on the kitchen cart below:
If you’re familiar with the wine forums at all you know that people have their own monikors that they go by. Some of them are pretty cool and keep within the theme of wine. Well, the same goes for the Kitchen Aid forum I found out. But it’s not the names they go by on the forum, it’s the names they have assigned to their stand mixers. While some people have named their stand mixers, I have not. We just call it the Kitchen Tractor, which is kind of a name I guess.
Long story longer about this thing — I bought it after visiting friends (correction, Paul bought it for my birthday) who had one and they made this great dessert with it. After watching it perform I declared it a Must Have for whipping cream at home. Yep. Whipping Cream. Well, I unpacked it, I read thru all of the recipes that came with it and the first thing I tried was bread.
Since then, just over a year ago, I’ve baked hundreds of loaves of bread and whipped cream maybe twice. I’ve also made raviolis, spaghetti noodles, ground pepper relish, ground pork, beef, chicken, and juiced citrus. This is, in my opinion, the best kitchen tool you can have.
I’ve been taking all sorts of bread photos, and the latest and greatest was an olive loaf with roasted garlic, sundried tomatoes, and kalamata olives.
I pretty sure Paul thought I would be a bored housewife without a formal “day job” to go to, but between the pruning, the bookkeeping, the bottling, and logistics of managing it all and then some, AND getting to stay home and bake fresh bread, I am anything BUT bored. Not to mention I get to drink wine at this job…if I could sit still long enough to enjoy it.